Rosie O'Donnell Wants to Talk About Her Facelift

27.05.2026, 19:19 allure.com

Rosie O'Donnell got a facelift—and she wants to talk about it.

The comedian and actor revealed that she had a lower deep-plane facelift in January 2026 and has complicated feelings about the entire process, which she shared in her now-signature poetic style on Substack. In the post, titled “decisions,” O'Donnell wrote that she swore she'd never go under the knife, but after losing 50 pounds, she changed her mind.

“I used to feel very strongly about facelifts,” O'Donnell wrote. “Not casually—morally. I had assigned myself as head of all women who would never ever." She went on to say that getting a facelift felt like a “betrayal” of feminism and aging, even of “our team of women worldwide.” But after losing weight, O'Donnell said her face had changed (she used the phrase “melting with intention” to describe it), and though she tried to accept it, she couldn't. “There's a point where acceptance starts to feel like lying.”

O'Donnell's 13-year-old child, Clay, found out that their mother was contemplating a facelift and had some thoughts about it too, saying O'Donnell “earned" her wrinkles and that young women look up to her. What kind of message would she be sending about aging and accepting yourself as you are if she got plastic surgery? Then Clay told O'Donnell with “strong effect,” "‘I wouldn’t be able to respect you if you did it.’” According to O'Donnell, Clay sounded “exactly like me. Like my younger, more certain, more morally rigid self had somehow moved into my house and was now judging my face.”

O'Donnell sat for a few months with the idea of getting a facelift, then realized that not doing it would also be teaching Clay a lesson. “If I’m teaching Clay anything, it can’t be that my body belongs to an idea either,” she wrote. “Even a good idea. Even feminism. Because that’s still not freedom—that’s just a different authority telling you what you’re allowed to do with your own face.” Her words echo those of Allure contributor, Joan Kron, who said of her three facelifts: “The feminist line is, 'We've earned these wrinkles. We don't want to erase them.' Well, I’m a feminist, but I don’t believe in telling people what to do with their bodies.”

O'Donnell eventually did have the surgery, choosing a doctor who had worked on some of her friends to a subtle but noticeable effect. “I wanted to still be me, just…less haunted. And I do look like me…a slightly more well-rested, emotionally stable version of me.” But after all that deep self-reflection and grappling with her decision, O'Donnell says no one has even noticed she had work done. “I went through a full existential feminist crisis, had my face and neck surgically altered, and the result is…zippo.”

But O'Donnell is fine with that, she says, calling it the “best possible outcome.” “I didn’t disappear, I didn’t become someone else. I just stopped arguing with the mirror. And maybe that’s enough. Or at the very least…it’s what a lower, deep plane face lift [sic] looks like when it minds its own business.”

We're not entirely surprised that O'Donnell chose a deep plane facelift. The technique has become part of our modern plastic surgery vernacular. Facelifts in general have become the trending surgical procedure, with tons of chatter about which celebrities went under the knife and exactly which techniques their surgeons may have used. During a deep plane facelift, the surgeon will reposition ligaments under the SMAS (a layer of tissue that covers the facial muscles) for a lifted look.

O'Donnell did not share photos of herself post-facelift, but she is joining the ranks of celebrities who have been open about their work. Denise Richards told Allure all about her recent facelift and even shared the actual, unedited before-and-after pics. A day after O'Donnell's post went live, Glamour published an interview with Keltie Knight, where she shared details about her own facelift, even mentioning that, “No, I didn’t get a deal, because I had no intention of talking about it.” Kris Jenner, Ricki Lake, and Kathy Griffin are just a few of the celebrities who've recently confirmed their facelifts. Even some famous men are getting in on the plastic surgery transparency action.

In addition, more and more people are reconsidering their “no surgery ever” stance as they age; Allure contributor Val Monroe wrote that even though she “loves an old face,” she doesn't love that aging has caused the area around her mouth to “set itself into something that looks exactly like disdain.”

O'Donnell ended her post by saying that while she knows she doesn't owe anyone an explanation for her decision to get a facelift, she doesn't like secrets. “Part of my desire to show myself…is to come clean,” she wrote. “But who do I owe that truth to? Is it mine to keep?” She writes of feeling “almost shameful” of her “privileged place” in the world, noting that the surgery cost “more money than I have ever paid for a car.” But at 64 years old, O'Donnell says that despite her still-conflicted feelings, she and her “new lower face and neck” are “just happy to be alive…able to feel and choose and use my voice whenever I feel called to…as we carry on in act 3.”

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